Green energy, green in your pocket

Green energy, green in your pocket

Big oil is making big news in 2017 with investments and projects in the United States making headlines and strong bottom lines, yet another type of green energy is generating more and more green rectangles for one state.

When one thinks of Texas and energy perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is oil. Texas operates more refineries than any other state and, in 2014 its oil output was 36% of America’s total and, with 10.5 billion barrels, its reserves accounted for one-third of all proven reserves. Exxon, Chevron and others are spending a combined $10 billion on oil in the southwest U.S. Permian Basin this year alone.

Surprisingly, Texas leads the country in producing another kind of energy: producing four times more wind power than California and twice that of Iowa. Since 2010, Texas has increased its wind power capacity by 80% with wind power occasionally supplying 40-50% of the entire state’s electricity.

Google, the largest investor in renewable energy in the world is using wind energy to attain its 100% renewable energy goal, which it expects to achieve next year, with 2,548 megawatts of wind contracts around the world.

Amazon is not far behind, as it plans in 2017 on opening 1 million megawatt hours per year wind farm (enough to power 90,000 households) to help offset its data centers energy consumption.